If you don't count the U.S. government and nonprofits, the pharmaceutical industry had the most job cuts last year. Mergers, acquisitions and major restructurings made pharma a much smaller and leaner sector -- will those changes now play in its favor?

AstraZeneca failed to win FDA approval for its potential heart drug Brilinta, a drug the company -- which is about to face a severe patent cliff -- had high hopes for. Shares in the U.K. drugmaker dropped in London and were over 5% lower in premarket trading in New York.

Now that they are nearly done squeezing Swiss bank UBS for information about its wealthy tax-dodging clients, the IRS and the Justice Department are moving on to new tax fraud targets: Clients of London-based bank HSBC Holdings, mostly those with ties to India and Singapore.

In January 2010, the Supreme Court gave corporations unlimited power to spend money on political campaigns, effectively swaying politicians in their favor. But by doing this, Washington could become less inclined to side with consumers and more inclined to rule in favor of the companies that they are supposed to regulate. The result could be ominous.